


wait for me

by brandflakeeee



Series: wait for me [7]
Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 04:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brandflakeeee/pseuds/brandflakeeee
Summary: persephone makes a decision. balance is restored.





	wait for me

**Author's Note:**

> a short installment because this is what i intended to be the end. originally was going to post it with the previous event, but i decided to make it separate. i might do more in this verse later, but thank you so much to everyone who's read, reviewed, liked, and sent me kind messages! i hope this suits you for a tentative ending.

The closer it gets to spring, the more tension that seems to rise in their estate. They don’t talk about it, their attentions focused entirely on Melinoe. It’s easy to lose themselves in the needs of a new life, and for a while there is blessed balance. With a week left until their six months are up, however, Persephone is restless. It’s a deep, unsettling restlessness that won’t leave her be no matter how many times she staves it off. She knows her lover can sense it, too. They still don’t talk about it. 

 

Instead, they dance.

 

Factory workers gather in the Elysian fields, laughing and talking in ways they haven’t for centuries. Entire families of shades that spend the day of false light among the fields. There are campfires and music playing and for a moment, Persephone cannot believe the sight, in truth. It reminds her so much of the surface it’s almost overjoying. 

 

Melinoe has healed the the heart of the underworld king, softened it. And with coaxing from his wife the underworld, in essence, is coming back to life. 

 

Persephone drags him into a dance as someone strums a lyre and while it isn’t their ancient song, it’s a song nonetheless and she dances with her man by the heat of a campfire. It’s so out of character for him to show this side in front of other workers, to shower her with affection in front of anyone else who might take it as weakness. But the shades are happy and not likely to use it against him; they adore Persephone far too much, and their little underworld princess. For being a child born of darkness, Melione has breathed life back into the underworld in ways Persephone never thought possible. 

 

It is the shrieks of laughter of their winter’s child that catch her attention over the din of the music and laughter. She twists her head immediately with a delighted smile and catches sight of Eurydice spinning with her little girl, the pair of them looking completely at ease. Hades’ tightens his arm at her waist and draws her in. For the first time in a long time he looks like the Hades she fell in love with. Hades, the man. Not the god or the king. She feels at ease. Things have finally gotten better. Things will be alright. 

 

“You gonna dance like this with me up top when you come visit?” She asks, breathless, and regrets it the moment it comes out of her mouth with the way his eyes dim just a touch. 

 

“Every day if I could.” He brushes his nose against hers, and for a moment everything and everyone fades out. Gods, she hates to leave him to his devices for another six months. How long before the city might return to its steel and iron heartbeat because her man starts worrying she won’t come back? The stakes are double now and she worries the thoughts in that brain of his. 

 

“Won’t be long.” She doesn’t know if she means until she heads to the surface, or she’s trying to confirm it won’t be a long six months. But it will. Even with visits and arrangements it will be difficult. 

 

“Won’t be long.” He echoes. “I’m going to rescue sprout. We’ve neglected her.”

 

He heads toward Eurydice before she can stop him. Melinoe is his life blood now, as if his heart exist solely outside his body. He cherishes her. It’s easy to see. Persephone smiles as she watches them, Melinoe delighted in his presence. It makes the guilt in her stomach twist painfully. This custody arrangement he and her momma have will tear them apart. 

 

Eurydice crosses to Persephone when relieved of the infant, and she snags two drinks for them on the way. 

 

“You look as broody as he usually is.” Eurydice quips, offering out a tin mug of whatever alcohol it is. She sips it. 

 

“Just thinking. Almost time for spring.”

 

She watches her great man of a husband murmuring to Melinoe, swaying slightly to the music with her. The kingdom will fall for a song - a song named Melinoe. 

 

The alcohol tastes sweet on her tongue, sharp and familiar. She knows the taste well enough, belonging to the only fruit capable of growing in his underworld. It gives her pause. She could do it, so easily - but what state would it leave the mortal realm? Her momma? Everything could go to hell and yet - Persephone looks over to Eurydice with a dawning notion. 

 

The answer seems to be standing right next to her. She can’t believe it’s taken this long to realise it. Oh, those ones up on the mountain are going to be furious and so will her momma and maybe even Hades when he realises, but suddenly Persephone can’t find it in herself to care. All her life she’s given and given and  _ given _ to the mortal realm. She deserves this one moment to be selfish, one moment she does for  _ herself _ .

 

“I need your help.”

 

She sets down the cup of booze without explaining, and Eurydice follows without question. The music and voices fade as they slip away, Persephone leading up the winding path back up to the estate. To the gardens - or what may classify as gardens. She’d tried once, to produce beautiful floral plants within the bushes and sand-like soil. They’d withered and decayed and while she’s found more plants suitable to the darkness, they’re not as colorful as she’d like. But they do, because she has a glass house in secret filled with flowering and blooming plants that sate her needs while she’s here. 

 

There are several trees in the estate gardens, however. Large, thick branches laden with ripe and juicy pomegranates. 

 

“Why do I get the feeling you’re about to break a lot of rules?” Eurydice says warily and Persephone chuckles.

 

“Because I am. For the better.” She twists to the girl, studying her face. “What if I told you I could send you back up top?”

 

“You already said you couldn’t. It can’t be both ways.”

 

“Immortals don’t stay in the underworld as shades. They can’t. Physically impossible.” There’s a prickling to Persephone’s skin and the hair on the back of her neck rises. The Fates are there suddenly, shadowed in gray. They hum, waiting. Watching. 

 

She’s never done something like this before, but she knows the logistics well enough. It’s a rash decision, but something in her knows this is the only option to break the cycle - for the better, at least. She hopes. She’s thrumming with energy now, with the sheer idea that this might work. It’s a rash decision and she’s risking quite literally everything. She reaches out to pluck one of the pomegranates free of the tree, breaking the skin with her bare hands. The red immediately stains her skin. She moves like a woman possessed and she very well might be. The Fates are silent in the back of her mind. Have they been waiting for this?

 

She looks up at Eurydice, meets the gaze of this young fragile woman, before she reaches out and grabs her hand with her own. 

 

“I need to teach you. I need you to listen and listen well.”

 

The power to create gods out of nothing, to grant abilities has always been hidden in the gardens up on the mountain. Hera’s garden. Other than natural reproduction, of course - hence Melinoe. There are ways to circumvent it of course, things the gods so rarely do because of the risks and their selfish nature. She makes Eurydice cup the pomegranate in her hands and wraps her fingers stained with the juices around the girl’s. 

 

The ground beneath her feet shifts suddenly, and Persephone’s stomach twists.  _ He knows _ . It cuts her time in half. 

 

She speaks in greek, in latin, and again in english, nails digging into Eurydice’s hands, though not hard enough to draw blood. Begging her to repeat it. The fragile flower does, bless her, and manages not to stumble over the language.  _ Good _ . 

 

Her abilities are dormant often, down here in the underworld. She calls upon them now, weak as they are, the soft warmth filling her to the brim. She focuses it into her hands, into  _ Eurydice _ and watches as the girl’s eyes widen when she feels the warmth seeping into her own hands. It must have been so long since she’s felt warmth, poor thing. Shades feel nothing, Persephone knows. 

 

But just as she had brought life into Melinoe, she is bringing it into Eurydice again. This is ancient magic, the same sort of ancient magic that binds each soul in contracts to these lands. 

 

_ A life for a life _ .

 

There’s a strange sort of exhaustion that overwhelms her, and yet she continues. Her knees buckle for the effort and she and Eurydice sink to the ground together, knees hitting the dark sandy soil of the garden earth. 

 

And as sudden as it had begun, it is done. 

 

Persephone recoils as if burned by fire, falling back on her ass in the dirt. Eurydice does the same, breathing hard. There’s color returned to her cheeks, flushed red from what Persephone has just done. Eurydice puts her hands against the dirt to steady herself and watches in vague awe as soft green tendrils grow from between her fingers. They wither almost instantly, but sprout briefly enough that Persephone smiles.

 

She’s tired of waiting for balance to restore itself. 

 

The pomegranate lay forgotten between them. She reaches out and snatches it up as Eurydice stares at her hands in silence. She breaks free a handful of the seeds, she doesn’t count how many, before she throws the lot of them in her mouth and bites down. The sweetness bursts across her tongue almost euphorically, and an eerie sense of calm sweeps through her. It tastes just as she remembers, these beautiful underworld fruits, and she eats another few seeds.

 

It’s how Hades finds her moments later, leaning against one of the pomegranate trees with Eurydice at her side. His expression is unreadable, and Persephone watches as he drops to his knees in front of her, reaches for those juice stained fingers. She lets him, his face twisted suddenly in anguish. 

 

“What have you done, wife?”

 

“What needed to be done.” She smiles softly. “What I should have done a long time ago.”

 

“You’ve damned yourself.” He whispers, and she chuckles faintly.

 

“No. Not damned, husband. Not at all.”

 

She has to spend the rest of the day in bed, as if someone has zapped the life out of her. In essence it’s what’s happened. Godly abilities exist as an inane energy inside them and when depleted, she feels entirely human. Part of her feels guilty in what she’s done, but it’s overridden by the sudden sheer  _ freedom _ she feels. 

 

It isn’t permanent, but her custody arrangement has merely been  _ transferred _ to another body and with it, part of her abilities as the goddess of spring. She’s still immortal or course, still retains a portion of her skills and gifts, but for six months of the year those spring and summer gifts merely find a new host - in Eurydice. Spring and summer will come to the above ground but it won’t be Persephone stepping off that train. 

 

Eurydice still belongs to the underworld, so she’ll return in the winter until it’s time for spring to come again. 

“It was a foolish decision and you know it.” Hades murmurs against her ear. He’s in bed too, curled around her with his arm around her middle. Melinoe is asleep in her crib across the room. She smiles and twists to face her lover, resting a hand across his chest. His heart. 

 

“It was. You’re just mad because I burned your contract.”

 

“You’ve weakened yourself.”

 

“I haven’t. I’ll get my strength back in a few days.” She rests her forehead against his with a vague smile. “I won’t apologise. I’m not going to regret it.”

 

“You’re trapped down here. Without sun. Without flowers. Without  _ life _ .”

 

“Stop putting damn words in my mouth.” She mutters. “I do have life. My life is you, with our little sprout. It ain’t fair to her to make her suffer on account of us being separated.”

 

He drags her closer, if possible. As if to meld them together as one. She softens in his arms. 

 

“Is it wrong of me to be happy?” He half whispers into her hair. Persephone smiles gently. 

 

“Not at all, my love. My light. Though if you thought I was insufferable for half a year, think of how much of a handful you’ll have with me down here all year.” She cannot forget the days of sharp words and bitter truths between them, the years that had brought Eurydice and Orpheus to them. It had taken that to remind them how to love again, that ancient melody brought back to life by another love story. 

 

Persephone is happy that it not longer exists as a tragedy. 

 

“I love you. More than I can express.” He murmurs, and she traces the lines of his handsome face. Those lines have lessened just a smidge, and he looks younger than he has in years. 

 

“How long?” She asks, and he smiles.

 

“Since the beginning of time. How long?”

 

“Until the end of time.”

 

\---

 

On the road to hell there was a railroad line. The whistle tore through the air and with it, frosts began to melt. 

 

It pulled into the station, a lone car behind the engine. Hermes stood on the platform waiting, the poet at his side. As the door opened and Eurydice appeared in the doorframe, only Orpheus seemed surprised. Hermes only grinned.

 

“Spring has come again, but she’s changed her face.” Hermes offered out a hand to Eurydice, who stepped down onto the platform with a flush to her face and a suitcase at her side.

 

Eurydice smiles at Orpheus. 

 

“Will you finish your song for me?”

 

Orpheus laughs, and sweeps forward to embrace his muse, his love, his wife. Eurydice laughs too, and when he puts her down she cups her hands together between them. A soft red carnation blooms from nothing between her fingers, and she tucks it into his shirt pocket with a warm smile. 

 

"Come home with me?" He asks, and Eurydice nods.

 

"Until the fall. You'll wait for me, through winter?"

 

"I will."


End file.
